Miter Saw Station

The original miter saw stand was made with some sawhorses and a top made from 2×4’s and plywood, it worked for most purposes. I use my miter saw for some fine woodworking projects, and carpentry work ( e.g building a deck). The table saw is better when you really want to be precise, but I like the convenience of a saw dedicated to cross cutting. Sometimes I’ll have the table saw set up for ripping or cutting dadoes, and don’t want to modify the setup to make a cross cut.

My goals for this project were twofold, improve the existing design, and make better use of space by adding some storage. The issue with the design was the lack of support for the board being cut, if the board being cut was not between 3 and 6 feet long, then it was either too short or too long, and didn’t have a good place to rest. Second was that the dust collection setup for it was terrible. I had it hooked up to a 2.5 HP dust collection unit, and more dust ended up on the floor or in the air that going getting picked up by the vacuum. I enclosed the dust collection port much better and tightened up some of the connections. It doesn’t collect all the dust, but it is a vast improvement. The miter saw presents one of the biggest challenges for dust collection in your shop. Since I was going to the trouble of building a large support surface I decided to incorporate some shelving and wood storage underneath, this was designed kind of haphazardly ( i.e. in my head as I built it ), but turned out to work really well and I am very happy with the result. There is a lot of room for wood storage. Long boards around 8 feet long go underneath the saw, boards around 4 feet go underneath in back ( b/c the the dust collection hood is in the way) shorter boards and miscellaneous items go on the shelves behind the saw. I don’t plan on moving this saw around much, but wanted to be able to, so I built it on 6 heavy duty casters.

Here I am attaching the casters to the frame. The frame was made with some 4 x 4’s, 2′ x 4’s and birch plywood, all bought from Home Depot. It’s not real high quality stuff but its good enough. This project is more functional than aesthetic.

I used nuts and bolts to attach the casters, these bolts pass all the way through the 4×4.

Here I’m building the front and the back. The back is a single piece of 4′ x 8′ quarter inch birch plywood, that’s how I came up with the actual dimensions for the machine 8 feet long and 4 feet tall just to make use of lumber efficient. Like I said I didn’t come up with a specific design from the beginning I just started building and haphazardly put shelves in where it was convenient, and where I could make the most use of wood scraps I had laying around.

The front and side frames are made from 2 x 4s, which are pocket screwed into the 4×4, then faced with 1/2 inch birch plywood.

next I wanted to get the dust collection fitting installed, and then design the internal shelving around it. It is really important to have the dust collection hose installed so that there are no sharp turns or kinks. I cut the board for the top, and the hole for the dust collection hood, but I did not screw the top down here.

Here is the view underneath, metal tubing would be better, but the flexible dust collection hose is much easier to work with.

I wanted to have a large section for wood storage, especially for long boards. Here I installed a vertical piece of plywood a little over 4″ from the back, leaving just enough room for the flexible dust collection hose. I pocket screwed the plywood to the base, and then face screwed a small support to the back of the front frame.

then I just screwed down a piece of plywood to the vertical piece and support.

Next I put a similar shelf just over 4″ from the bottom of the base, this was done to fully enclose the dust collection hose, so I would not damage when taking boards in and out of the base.

Next I installed 3 more vertical pieces to finish enclosing the dust collection fittings.

This leaves room for some storing shorter boards.

Next I added another level of small shelves, just to make storing smaller boards more convenient. The vertical piece that divides the lower cabinet would be better to make from one piece of plywood, I was able to use up some scraps leftover from a different project by using two.

and here is the completed base, next is to take measurements for the miter saw.

My saw is a Dewalt DWS780, I placed it on the table top, and pushed it back as far as possible to still allow the maximum travel of the slide.

Next I turned the miter adjustment all the way to both side, and marked where to install some shelving.

This measurement was to determine the width of the two side panels you see in the next picture. The handle of the saw will be higher than top shelf, so I had to make sure that when the miter setting on the saw was fully turned it would not be hitting the top shelf. I would have liked to make the entire station higher, but that would require that I move some a light switch, which I didn’t feel like doing.

The sides were 3/4″ birch, the top was 1/2″ birch. It will need some additional support.

next I added some vertical supports for the top piece, but also these vertical piece were there to help contain the dust. So I wanted them as close as possible to the saw.

The miter adjustment on this saw is not symmetric, it goes 60 degrees to the right, and 50 degrees to the left. As a result these vertical supports are not the same distance from the dust collection hood.

I used some 90 degree clamps and pocket screws to attach the vertical supports.

same for the left side.

Finally I put in some shelves for extra storage. These were just face screwed in from the sides.

Here is the saw in the garage, now it just needs some supports for the stock you are cutting.

And here are those supports, just made from leftover scraps of plywood, already I’m starting to load it up with random crap.

The wood storage underneath works really nice, I can get a lot of lumber in there, and not worry about damaging it when I move my lawnmower and whatever else around my rather cramped workshop.

Here is the other side. Its hard to see, but the dust collection blast gate connects to the hose about 12″ away from the stand.

The saw is not screwed down or attached to the tabletop in any way. This makes it easy to take the saw offsite to build a deck or whatever, and the saw is plenty heavy so it doesn’t need to be screwed down.

You can see the back of the saw is enclosed much better than before. The dust collection is much better now, only a little collects in the compartments to either side.

I am very pleased with the results of this miter saw stand, and if I could do it over, I don’t think I would change much. Though I’d like to add one of these flippable Kreg stops, and a measuring tape, just to make it faster when doing multiple cuts to the same length. That will be a future project.

3 Responses to “Miter Saw Station”

Hi,
I just bought the same saw as yours. When I look at the bottom of the saw, there are marks written by a green marker. I wonder if your saw have the same marking underneath. Please advise. Thank you